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After the Revolutionary War, the government gave large areas of land to veterans and others. Many of these lands ended up in the hands of speculators. In 1795, two men, Wilson Nicholas and Jacob Kenney, sold their land in what is now McDowell County to Robert Morris, a financier from Philadelphia. Morris couldn’t manage the land, and settlers began moving in. By the 1830s, much of the land went back into public hands due to tax forfeitures. By the time of the Civil War, Virginia owned two-thirds of the land in McDowell County.
The first European settlers in McDowell County were Mathias and Lydia Harman, who arrived around 1802. Settlement was slow because of the rough terrain, and by 1860, the county’s population was only 1,535.
